I was recently made aware of the fact that, in the last few decades, new football stadiums have been constructed with the use and spending of our tax dollars. I personally was unaware of this, and do not support such spending by our government. I find it unjustifiable.

Full Topic

On balance, the use of our taxes to fund the construction of new football stadiums is an unjustified use of our taxes.

Burdens

As Pro, I will have the BOP to show that using American taxes to build American Football Stadiums is an unjustifiable use of our tax dollars.

Con's burden will be to negate my arguments and thus show that using these taxes on football stadiums are justifiable.

Key Terms

On balance: generally-speaking; or, with both good and bad considered

Football Stadiums: a stadium where football games are held; American Football.

Justified: Having, done for, or marked by a good or legitimate reason.

Rules

1. No forfeits2. Citations should be provided in the text of the debate3. No new arguments in the final round4. No trolling5. First round is for acceptance only6. Violation of any of these rules merits a loss

I want to start by thanking uniferous for accepting this debate. Let's get right to it!

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In September 2015, an organization called Taxpayers Protection Alliance released a report titled "Sacking Taxpayers: How NFL Stadium Subsidies Waste Money and Fall Short on Their Promises of Economic Development". This report revealed that since 1995, a staggering 29 of the 31 stadiums that house NFL teams received public subsidies for construction, renovation or both. More importantly, the report shows that between 1995 and today, taxpayers have been forced to spend nearly $7 billion subsidizing NFL stadium construction and renovation projects. [1]

"The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA), based in Washington, D.C., is a non-profit non-partisan organization dedicated to educating the public through the research, analysis and dissemination of information on the government’s effects on the economy. TPA, through its network of taxpayers will hold politicians accountable for the effects of their policies on the size, scope, efficiency and activity of government." [2] While this information stems from multiple news reports and blogs, they are the organization which published the original study and findings, and, as such, will be my primary source.

Lastly, why am I focusing solely on NFL stadiums? A simple google search will reveal that alot of major sports stadiums are now being funded with taxpayers money. [3] The reason is because I want to set a precedent, if I can show that such spending on NFL stadiums are unjustified, I can then apply those same principles to other professional sports. With that said, this report on the spending on NFL stadiums is a great place to start, hence the focused frame pertaining solely to Professional American Football in this debate.

Argument(s)

I. The Justification of Tax Spending on NFL Stadiums is Unsound.

The first thing we need to analyze when proving that the justification falls short, is the justification itself. According to the study, "Government leaders and team officials argue that publicly subsidized stadiums are justified because the projects encourage economic growth by generating wealth and creating jobs." [1]

So the question then is, do these projects actually result in economic growth or a generation of wealth for the public paying the taxes? In an effort to determine the economic impact of taxpayer-financed NFL stadiums, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance compared median household income and poverty rates in counties with NFL stadiums before and after tax dollars were used to subsidize the stadiums. Let's look at the results:

Arizona Cardinals

In 2006, the $455 million University of Phoenix Stadium pecked away at $308 million in public funds. In order to pay for the stadium, Phoenix-area tourists were sacked with almost $300 million in hotel taxes and rental car fees. Despite hosting two Super Bowls and many other major events, the stadium has failed to generate the anticipated economic benefit. The median household income in Maricopa County, where the stadium is located, has fallen nearly 10 percent since the stadium opened, and the county’s poverty rate has climbed sharply. [1]

Poverty Rate before Stadium: 13.8% Poverty Rate after Stadium: 17.6% Median Income before New Stadium: $57,502 Median Income after New Stadium: $52,066 Cost to Taxpayers: $308 million

Chicago Bears

The Bears’ effort to modernize the stadium without tearing it down led to a $587 million facelift on a stadium that was originally constructed for $13 million. At the time the project was completed in 2003, the Soldier Field renovation was the most expensive NFL stadium ever. [1]

Using a 0.5% county sales tax hike, a handout from the state of Ohio and hazy accounting to finance 94 percent – or almost $425 million – of the Bengals stadium wrecked Hamilton County. The stadium devoured more than 16 percent of the county’s general fund budget, created a budget shortfall and caused a property tax hike. [1]

Poverty Rate before Stadium: 11.7% Poverty Rate after Stadium: 18.7% Median Income before Stadium: $52,055 Median Income after Stadium: $47,123 Cost to Taxpayers: $424.8 million

Cleveland Browns

City officials passed a set of funding strategies to underwrite the $200 million in public funding going towards the Browns’ new $271 million stadium. [1]

Poverty Rate before Stadium: 14.3% Poverty Rate after Stadium: 19.2% Median Income before Stadium: $51,634 Median Income after Stadium: $43,653 Cost to Taxpayers: $200 million

Dallas Cowboys

Jerry Jones claimed the facility would require minimal tax dollars to build. However, when the actual costs of building the new Cowboys stadium exceeded initial estimates by more than $500 million, Jones convinced lawmakers to slap a bevy of new taxes on Arlington, Texas, residents, including a citywide half-cent sales tax increase to fund most of the cost overruns. [1]

Poverty Rate before New Stadium: 12.3% Poverty Rate after New Stadium: 15.2% Median Income before Stadium: $62,735 Median Income after Stadium: $56,906 Cost to Taxpayers: $444 million

Detroit Lions

Rather than inspiring the Lions to finally win a Super Bowl, Ford Field played a role in causing the Motor City to become the largest city in American history to declare bankruptcy. [1]

Poverty Rate before New Stadium: 20.6% Poverty Rate after New Stadium: 25.1% Median Income before Stadium: $49,544 Median Income after Stadium: $40,485 Cost to Taxpayers: $110 million

Green Bay Packers

The number of people living in poverty in Green Bay has nearly doubled since taxpayers were burdened with the stadium rehab costs. The median income in Brown County plummeted from over $65,000 in 1995 to less than $52,000 in 2013. [1]

Let's cut to the chase and do the math, because this study includes the economic impact for a total of 31 stadiums.

How many benefited economically? 5

How many were moot reads due to a lack of data or non-funding? 5

How many were impacted negatively? 21

68% of these stadiums funded by tax-payers actually hurt the local economy of the surrounding area, while only 16% actually led to economic growth.

This data shows that the current justification that such funding, "encourage economic growth by generating wealth and creating jobs" is unsound. It clearly does not encourage economic growth for the majority, rather only a slight minority has ever had any sort of economic benefit from such spending.

Because of this, there is clearly no valid justification for spending our tax dollars on the construction/renovations of professional football stadium when the data reflects the opposite effect of said justification as a majority result.

The aff. case must prove that using taxes for the building of football stadiums is not justified. Justified is defined as being done or marked for a legitimate reason. The affirmative case must prove that the resolution is not done for a good or legitimate reason. I will be attempting to negate the resolution by using a K based on moral nihilism where I will show you that we cannot determine what is good and what is bad. Pro has the burden to prove the resolution to be true [1]. This means that Pro must also prove that intrinsic moral values exist in order to affirm.

Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the most notable moral nihilists:

“"I seek God! ... We have killed him … How shall we comfort ourselves … What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? … Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us---for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto." … "I have come too early," … "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. … deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars---and yet they have done it themselves.” [2]

Pro may attempt to claim that God is irrelevant. The argument isn’t contingent on God’s existence. The message of the argument is that without a source of moral authority we cannot have objective moral values which is what is required from the affirmative case in order for them to prove that something can be considered intrinsically good or legitimate [1].

Wendy Brown critiques morality:

“the loss of … epistemological ground for … morality … does not quash the moral impulse itself. … what form does this impulse take when it has lost its lodging in an abstract principle and vision of the good .. . … ? It is when the telos of the good vanishes but the yearning for it remains that morality appears to devolve into moralism … at this point that one finds moralizers standing against much but for very little, adopting a voice of moral judgment in the absence of a full-fledged moral … vision. … the moralizer refuses the loss of the teleological and becomes reactionary: clinging without logical ground to the last comforting frame in the unraveling narrative … Despite its righteous insistence on knowing what is True, Valuable, or Important, moralism … marks both analytic impotence and … aimlessness … the moralizing injunction to act, … might be read as a symptom of … paralysis in the face of radical … disorientation and as a …hysterical mask for the despair that attends such paralysis. … a life force flattened into a passive or paralyzed stance toward the world turns against life as it turns against itself; … it paradoxically evinces precisely the nihilism, the antilife bearing that it moralizes against in its nemesis …” [3]

Brown explains that without a definitive aim of what good really is then we cannot know what is good. This brings us back to the definitions. Justified is defined as being done for a good or for a legitimate reason. How can we define what a good reason really is? The term good has no exact meaning and without a clear definition of what good really is then voters have no choice but to negate.

Brown continues,

“moralistic repreoaches … Rather than offering … substantive accounts of the forces of injustice … they condemn the manifestation of these forces in particular remarks or events. There is, … a politics … that … symptomizes despair over effecting change at more significant levels. As vast quantities of … attention go to determining what socially marked individuals say, … the sources that generate … violence … and other elements of social injustice remain … unarticulated and unaddressed. We are lost as how to address those sources; but rather than examine this loss … rather than bear the humiliation of our impotence, we posture as if we were still fighting the big and good fight in our clamor over words and names. Don't mourn, moralize.” [4]

Moralism means that solvency not possible as it symptomized despair over effecting change at notable and important levels, ensuring the sources of violence remain unarticulated and further more, unaddressed.

“the insistence on the importance of transcendent ideals … paradoxically affirms rather than challenges a figuring of the political domain as relentlessly amoral. It places the idealist actor at a distance … thus inevitably disappointed by it and … even prepared to renounce politics because of its failures and compromises … genealogy formulated by Nietzsche…might function as … a ground that, … embraces the contingent elements of political life and also faces … the relative arbitrariness of … values. … genealogical knowledge as … released from conviction. … As Nietzsche describes this questioning, he also describes its productivity: "Out of my answers there grew new questions, … until at length I had a country of my own, … an entire discrete, thriving, flourishing world, … This secret garden is what genealogy intends to produce: this other way of conceiving the familiar, this radical displacement of the lay of the land through which we think and perceive ourselves, … Genealogy promises a worldview that is differently populated and oriented than the one in which we are steeped. "The project is to traverse with quite novel questions, … the enormous, distant, and so well hidden land of morality … to discover this land for the first time" … This problem of … morality … . seems … to be … something detached, an isolated question mark; but whoever … learns how to ask questions here will experience what I experienced—a tremendous new prospect opens up for him, … a new demand becomes audible. … genealogy is a form of artful questioning, a way of asking "what really happened there" … we need a critique of moral values, the value of these values themselves must first be called in question—and for that there is needed a knowledge of the conditions and circumstances in which they grew, … questioning produces an experience of vertigo, and the vertigo gives way to a demand. The demand is not of a conventional … sort but rather seeks new knowledge …” [5]

And so Brown concludes that morality is not defined. And this is what is leading to violence and chaos. Our moral values need to be “called into question”. We need to reject morality until we can assess and confirm what we classify as intrinsic morals. Disagreed upon moral values means that key terminology cannot be defined and if this terminology is not intrinsically defined then this ultimately means that affirming is not possible.

The K is effective since Pro's case rests upon the assumption that economic crisis for certain teams and for the country is bad. There are people that dislike other teams and want them to be in economic crisis (basic psychology tells us that people that are supportive of their own team are usually against other teams) [6]. There are people that hate other states [7] and want them to be in debt. There are people that hate the US [8] and want them to be in (more) debt. How can we determine who has the right perception of what is good and what is morally bad. In order to affirm we need a clear definition on what is good. No clear definition means that it can't be justified.

I'll hand it over to Pro and look forward to their rebuttals. Pro's arguments have no weight because good has no intrinsic definition. The resolution is negated.

Rather than either making a case that affirmatively advances his burden of proof, or rebutting my case, Con has elected in the alternative to run a "kritik" of the resolution which neither advances his burden nor undermined mine. Thus, my case stands and his approach fails for these reasons:

1) Con cannot negate my reason by saying that intrinsic moral values do not exist, because of the nature of the resolution. This is a debate about what makes good or legitimate public policy, with regard to the funding of sports stadiums; not “whether intrinsic moral values exist.”

Con states:

"The aff. case must prove that using taxes for the building of football stadiums is not justified. Justified is defined as being done or marked for a legitimate reason. The affirmative case must prove that the resolution is not done for a good or legitimate reason."

Notice the shifting of the goalposts fallacy Con commits in the underlined sections, this is Con's first mistake. "Good" and "Legitimate" are two different things, and I only have to affirm one or the other.

His second mistake is that since his K relies solely on what is "morally good", it does not accurately challenge the full resolution, thus it is not even an applicable Kritik to the debate at hand. Con is merely raising a non-topical argument that has no real impact nor any real *link* to the debate at hand.

2) I do not have to prove that “intrinsic moral values exist.” All I have to do to win is affirm the resolution, which is “using taxes to build football stadiums is not justified.”

I have done this fully in the previous round when I first shared what their justification was:

According to the study, "Government leaders and team officials argue that publicly subsidized stadiums are justified because the projects encourage economic growth by generating wealth and creating jobs."

I then showed through empirical data that a majority of these stadiums (21 out of 31) have negatively impacted the economy of the surrounding communities. This thus makes their justification not legitimate. [1] Additionally, a negative impact on the economy has no role in morality. If we boil it down to the simplist terms: the economy was larger before, and smaller after. It doesn't take proof of objective morality to show that this goes against the justification given by the government leaders and team officials.

Ultimately, Con has now wasted a round utilizing a non-topical kritik that fails to even accurately address the full resolution.

Thus I have successfully upheld my burden in this debate, whereas Con has done nothing to advance his own.

My opponent begins by extending his arguments. This is uncalled for and unnecessary because under the K presented none of his arguments have any weight.

My opponent states that I have a burden to fulfill however this is nonsensical. My opponent concedes to having the burden of proof. And by doing this he concedes that I don’t have a burden. Since I am defending the status quo I don’t need to prove anything. My burden is fulfilled because since this is the status quo we may as well stick to it because there is no reason to view it as unjustified. There is no need to change the system if my opponent cannot prove that there is anything wrong with it.

My opponent states that good and legitimate and notices that my case only attacks the word good. This is correct however he fails to understand how the term legitimate is defined. Legitimate is defined as ‘able to be defended with logic [and] justification’ [1]. So again, the term legitimate falls under the same heading as good. It needs to be defended with justification which is negated by the K. So unless my opponent can prove that it is not good (negated by the K) or that my position is not logical and has no justification (also negated by the K) then he loses. My opponent is correct in stating that he only needs to affirm one but the K negates both of them.

My opponent is also correct in stating that the K focus’ on what is morally good the term justified’s usage in the resolution makes this an ethical debate as opposed to a pragmatic one. The K does challenge the resolution because it uses the term justified which is implying that things can be considered as intrinsically good or legitimate.

My opponent continues by saying that he only needs to affirm the resolution to win, not moral objectivism (the view that intrinsic moral values exist). This is correct however given that I have raised the objection that the resolution cannot be proven without objective moral values existing then the only logical thing to do in this instance is negative because you cannot view the practice of building football stadium using taxation money as doing a bad thing.

My opponent automatically assumes what the definition of legitimate is without providing it and without employing it correctly. Something being bad for the economy (as was stated in my K - which my opponent dropped) can be viewed as good for some people and bad for others. Since in order for something to be legitimate it must be justified that doesn’t work either because the term justified is defined as doing something for a good or legitimate reason (hence the same problem with the term good arises in this scenario).

Finally, my opponent states that it doesn’t take objective morality to show that this goes against the justification given by the government. Voters ought to dismiss this because the resolution never states that we are going by the government's justification. It is used generically without reference to who it is justified by. Since it never says who it is justified by we must assume that he means it generally in regards to everybody. Since he phrases it in this way (without the use of the necessary sentence modifiers) we ought to presume that he is referencing to everybody in which case we must look for an intrinsic system of morality which my opponent fails to present.

In the very first round, before Con even accepted the debate, I stated what our respective burdens would be:

As Pro, I will have the BOP to show that using American taxes to build American Football Stadiums is an unjustifiable use of our tax dollars.

Con's burden will be to negate my arguments and thus show that using these taxes on football stadiums are justifiable.

These are the burdens that we both accepted by taking this debate.

I've upheld my burden throughout this debate. I've shown, through empirical data, that stadiums built using tax dollars have negatively impacted the majority of the surrounding communities of these stadiums economically, including a drop in the average income rate and average poverty rate, as evidenced in my Round 2. This goes *directly against* the justification given by government leaders and team officials, who justified this spending of our taxes by saying that it "will generate economic growth by generating wealth and creating jobs". [1] Con has failed to uphold his burden throughout this debate and instead attempted to run a Kritik of the resolution itself. Ultimately, Con had a burden set for him before the debate even began, and by accepting the debate implicitly agreed to the burden set for him. Violation of this merits a loss for Con.

Arguments

I. The Justification of Tax Spending on NFL Stadiums is Unsound.

The only response I've seen to this line of argumentation from Con is him claiming that he has no burden in this debate, which is a false claim since I clearly defined our burdens in Round 1. He then states in Round 3 that there is no need to change a system if I can't show that there's something wrong with it, a statement which completely ignores my entire affirmative case from Round 2 where I show what is wrong with this system.

Once more, Con drops my only argument. Since there are no new arguments in the final round, Con has left this line of argumentation standing unchallenged, thus dropping his burden completely in this debate which, again, merits a loss for Con.

II. Moral Nihilism Kritik

This is what Con has been spending his rounds on, a kritik of the resolution based on moral nihilism. I've already shown why it's a non-topical argument and, as such, is unable to be applied to this resolution, but I will explain it again for the sake of clarity:

First off, why is it non-topical and why is that a problem?

The reason it is non-topical is because of Con's own words:

"Justified is defined as being done for a good or for a legitimate reason. How can we define what a good reason really is? The term good has no exact meaning and without a clear definition of what good really is then voters have no choice but to negate."

This K is non-topical because it focuses solely on the tern "good" in the definition of the key term 'Justified'. However, the definition does not say, "that which is justified is both good and legitimate." Rather, it says "good or legitimate." All I have to do is show one or the other, not both.

Con then claims that his K covers the term legitimate too, based on the definition of legitimate: "able to be defended with logic or justification; valid." [3]

Okay, let's explore this. Valid is defined as: "having a sound basis in logic or fact; reasonable or cogent." [4] I've shown in Round 2 that the reasoning for the tax spending does not have a sound basis in fact, based on the empirical data showing that it has had the opposite economic impact as the given justification for such spending, thus making it unreasonable. Therefore, I've shown that the spending is not valid = not legitimate.

Con even concedes that his K only covers the word "good":

My opponent states that good and legitimate are two different things and notices that my case only attacks the word good. This is correct.

So clearly his K does not cover the term legitimate, and as such is not topically relevant to the resolution he is trying to attack. The Kritik merely attacks a part of the resolution, not the resolution in its entirety, and thus fails as an applicable Kritik.

Secondly, if it's non-topical, nor applicable, then what is it?

Since we've established that this Kritik is non-topical, nor applicable, it becomes nothing more than a logical fallacy known as a 'Red Herring'. [2] A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to "win" an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:

1. Topic A is under discussion 2. Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is actually not relevant to topic A) 3. Topic A is abandoned.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because merely changing the topic of discussion hardly counts as an argument against a claim.

Third, if it's just a red herring, then what does Con have?

Con has nothing. He even concedes key contentions to his attempted K:My opponent is also correct in stating that the K focus’ on what is morally good the term justified’s usage in the resolution makes this an ethical debate as opposed to a pragmatic one.

This concession from Con confirms the logical fallacy committed by him which I note in Round 3 - his "shifting of the goalposts". The issue here refers back to our respective burdens. I clearly defined the direction of this debate and assigned specific burdens to myself and whomever accepted. By Con ignoring his burden throughout the debate, and attempting to shift this from a pragmatic debate to an ethical one, he has committed his second logical fallacy within this debate.

Lastly, Con's last ditch effort

Con attempts to end his round by arguing that the audience should dismiss my point regarding how the existence of objective morality carries no weight against the obvious fact that the results contradict the given justification for this spending by government leaders and team officials. He does so by saying that because I don't specifically reference who stated that justification, that it shouldn't be considered because Con must then assume I'm talking about everybody... This is just silly.

If you look at the data I provided in Round 2, I link the source of this data. [1] In that source, it lists each stadium, the economic situation before and after, and highlights specific government leaders who allowed this spending to occur in their respective territory. Even an article published by The Atlantic lists specific names who've done this such as Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, The Saints’ owner, Tom Benson, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, ect.[5]

We can clearly see who propagates this unsound and invalid justification of our tax spending, and we can now toss out his claim that I was speaking about everybody.

In conclusion,

I've extended my affirmative case from Round 2, as it currently remains standing unchallenged by Con.

I've defeated his attempt of a Kritik by showing that it is non-topical due to only focusing on a portion of the resolution rather than the entire resolution, and how that thus makes it non-applicable.

I've further shown how Con has broken the rules of this debate by ignoring his assigned burden from the start and instead committing numerous logical fallacies in applying a non-topical, non-applicable K.

Okay, this is the final round so I will just be summarizing why I think that I've won the debate.

Kritiks were not against the rules. The debate specifically used the word justified making this an ethics debate, not a pragmatic one. In order for my opponent to meet his burden then he must prove that using taxes to build football staduim is not justified (ie. is not good or legitimate).

Therefore, according to the resolution my opponent cannot meet their burden unless they can show that things can be "not good" or "not legitimate"

My opponent has repeatedly failed to respond to the K and has instead resorted to ad ignorantiam attacks where he cannot respond to the K so instead he opts in to repeatedly claiming that it is irrelevant. He repeatedly calls it a nontopical and nonapplicable but fails to realize that his own burdens analysis AND his own resolution AND his own definitions AND his own concession to my responses prove that they are anything but nonapplicable. I have repeatedly noted all of this and all my opponent has to say is repeat that it's nontopical and non applicable. I ask that voters punish Pro for this.

My opponent claims that I have failed to respond to his case but I have. If anything he hasn't responded to mine. He hasn't made a single comment on the acutal substance of the K. He hasn't mentioned Neizche or Brown once.

Regarding my burden, the first round states that I must prove that it is justifiable. I specifically do this by stating:

"we may as well stick to it because there is no reason to view it as unjustified."

My opponent ignores this.

Furthermore, if you buy the K (meaning that Pro's burden cannot be fulfilled) but you also believe that my burden isn't fulfilled you still ought to be voting Con since Pro's burden is conceded to be greater than mine in the first round.

So let's do a quick recap:

The K stands. My opponent's burden is not met. Mine is. Even if mine isn't met, you still ought to be voting Con due to the larger burden on my opponent's behalf. The decision is clear.

4 points to Pro (Conduct, Arguments). Reasons for voting decision: Objective, overwhelming win for PRO. PRO wins because he offered solid and entirely un-refuted arguments against the use of tax money to fund football stadiums, and charted their numerous negative impacts, which also went unrefuted, and identified examples in numerous cities of the same. PRO directly advanced his BOP, and met it. CON, however, did nothing of the sort. CON elected in the alternative elected to run a kritik of the resolution based on justice and morality, from moral nihilism, from had nothing whatsoever to do with the resolution. Moreover, PRO defeated CON's very weak and poorly articulated K, with relative ease, and refocused the debate, despite a minor digression about the "rules." PRO therefore wins, and CON objectively loses. Conduct to PRO because of CON's unreasonable conduct regarding use of a K, which violated the obvious spirit and intent of the debate, and reduced to little more than a digression into absurdity.

[*Reason for non-removal*] The voter sufficiently explains their decision by analyzing arguments given by both sides and coming to a decision based on arguments he perceives as most relevant to the debate at hand. The voter does have some discretion with regards to conduct, and in this case that discretion is allowed since the voter explains how they viewed the Kritik as affecting the debate.
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3 points to Pro (Arguments). Reasons for voting decision: I honestly tried to understand how the terms "justified" and "moral" mean the same. I couldn't. Con failed to explain why something justified is necessarily moral. He just assumed it is. Con should have proven how something to be justified it should be moral, or something along those lines. As far as arguments are concerned Pro argued that the main justification is economic growth. He provides data to show how stadiums bring the opposite results. Con agrees, but Con's argument is that being is debt is good for other countries, because other countries hate the US. Therefore, the US are justified to spend money mindlessly, to please other countries. I can see clearly the economic impact of Pro's case, while I can't say the same for Con. It is not clear how the US being in debt would benefit other countries, and why is that a reason for the US to be in debt. Arguments to Pro

[*Reason for non-removal*] The voter sufficiently explains their decision by analyzing arguments given by both sides and weighing them against one another.
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The resolution states, "Using taxes to build football stadiums is not justified." Burdens of persuasion are shared evenly, since the topic is a normative one, for the purposes of fairness and arbitrary differentiation is not required when there is no self-warranting side. I usually don't get into the terms and definitions, but one term is important with regards to how much of Con's burden is met. The term is "justified," which is defined in Rd. 1 as "[h]aving, done for, or marked by a good or legitimate reason." The topic, therefore, is a policy topic, which involves analyzing the net benefits the resolution brings. It could be interpreted as a question of something else being a "good reason," but since no such argument is advanced, I default to a cost-benefit analysis.

Pro's sole argument is that there is immense tax spending that goes into making a football stadium, and that such spending is completely unnecessary, and poses an unnecessary tax burden on people. Since such a tax burden deprives people of money for no legitimate (read: "justified") reason, it is not justified. Con's argument is that morality does not exist, since the sole ground for morality lies in God. Con fails to explain the link between this argument and the resolution, so the argument is completely irrelevant. Con keeps asserting that morality is presumed by Pro's argument, but does not prove this to any extent. This also does nothing to advance Con's burden since it merely criticizes Pro's assumptions, without fulfilling Con's burden which is to show that it is justified to use taxes to build stadiums. This essentially forms a "pre-fiat" negation of Pro's case (in which it fails) rather than a "post-fiat" argument that advances Con's burden.

There is no significant clash in this debate, since Con drops Pro's case outside of the kritik. The primary clash surrounds the kritik. Pro negates the kritik by showing that it lacks relevance to the resolution. Con says establishing something as intrinsically "good" or "legitimate" requires morality, but doesn't prove this assertion (which is absurd at face value). Con drops that they don't fulfill their burden.

Conclusion:

This is an easy, objective win for Pro. Con does nothing to positively advance their burden, instead focusing on the rebuttal of Pro's case, and fails to explain the link between their kritik and the resolution. Con fails to prove that both "good" and "legitimate" presume morality; while the former may be subjective, the latter is not and Con fails to do anything to prove that either of them is subjective. Pro's burden is advanced by the tax burdens argument, which remains untouched. I have no offense left from Con and Pro's whole argument left.

Blade of Truth will win this debate, but after that trolling, was it really a win? Sorry man, hopefully you can find a better opponent on this topic who might actually be interested in the topic based on it's merit alone.

Reasons for voting decision: Objective, overwhelming win for PRO. PRO wins because he offered solid and entirely un-refuted arguments against the use of tax money to fund football stadiums, and charted their numerous negative impacts, which also went unrefuted, and identified examples in numerous cities of the same. PRO directly advanced his BOP, and met it. CON, however, did nothing of the sort. CON elected in the alternative elected to run a kritik of the resolution based on justice and morality, from moral nihilism, from had nothing whatsoever to do with the resolution. Moreover, PRO defeated CON's very weak and poorly articulated K, with relative ease, and refocused the debate, despite a minor digression about the "rules." PRO therefore wins, and CON objectively loses. Conduct to PRO because of CON's unreasonable conduct regarding use of a K, which violated the obvious spirit and intent of the debate, and reduced to little more than a digression into absurdity.

Reasons for voting decision: I honestly tried to understand how the terms "justified" and "moral" mean the same. I couldn't. Con failed to explain why something justified is necessarily moral. He just assumed it is. Con should have proven how something to be justified it should be moral, or something along those lines. As far as arguments are concerned Pro argued that the main justification is economic growth. He provides data to show how stadiums bring the opposite results. Con agrees, but Con's argument is that being is debt is good for other countries, because other countries hate the US. Therefore, the US are justified to spend money mindlessly, to please other countries. I can see clearly the economic impact of Pro's case, while I can't say the same for Con. It is not clear how the US being in debt would benefit other countries, and why is that a reason for the US to be in debt. Arguments to Pro